9 tonnes of fireworks planned for Sydney's epic New Year's Eve show

City of Sydney is taking its world-famous NYE show to the next level with 9 tonnes of fireworks.
The fireworks show will be the world’s most technologically advanced with the use of generative AI.
Special soundtracks have been created to help make the fireworks dance across a 7km stretch of Sydney Harbour.

“Those people in northern climates will be so jealous,” Clover Moore said with a smile this morning as the City of Sydney revealed mammoth plans for this year’s New Year’s Eve fireworks on Sydney Harbour. “This New Year’s Eve is going to be an amazing gift that will bring us all together”.

That level of confidence isn’t without basis. Each year Sydney puts on the most famous and technologically advanced New Year’s Eve fireworks display in the world, making full use of our postcard-perfect harbour with boomers shooting from the Sydney Harbour Bridge and numerous floating platforms.

With 2024 being a year of rapid change in Sydney, the city is feeling the need to step things up considerably, introducing a whopping 80 new firing positions on the western side of the Harbour Bridge.

Given most of the firing positions are usually located on the eastern side of the iconic structure, the new approach will light up 7km Sydney Harbour this time, with NYE’s kaleidoscopic glow stretching from Cockatoo Island to Point Piper and beyond.

Sydney’s New Year’s Eve fireworks display for 2024 will feature 26,500 lights and 9 tonnes of fireworks—up from 8.5 last year—fired from 8 floating platforms and numerous positions on the Harbour Bridge.

Seventh-generation pyrotechnician Fortunato Foti and his family are once again the masterminds behind the class-leading fireworks display. The family has been making fireworks since 1793, with a team made up of Foti’s children, nieces, nephews, brothers and cousins leading the process behind the scenes.

But the display is just half the story. Creative studio VANDAL has come back on board, using generative AI to lead the 8-hour light show as well as the countdown and content that’ll be projected on Sydney Harbour Bridge’s chunky pylons. Building on their debut as part of Sydney’s New Year’s Eve last year, VANDAL produced a symbolic tribute to strong-willed Cammeraygal woman, Barangaroo of the Eora language group.

As always, the Sydney fireworks will be broken up into two major streams on the night, starting with the 9pm fireworks that have been steadily improving over the years, to the point where they’ve now become just as meaningful as the midnight fireworks that follow.

A bigger focus on First Nations stories at 9pm

Sydney’s official New Year’s celebrations will kick off at 7:30pm when 3 Tribal Warrior vessels set sail west of the Barangaroo headland and loop around Circular Quay to the Sydney Opera House. This is part of a traditional smoking ceremony, preceding an 8:30pm Welcome to Country presented by Yvonne Weldon AM and a Calling Country led by ARIA-winning rapper Nooky who has created a soundtrack for the 9pm fireworks with his two young daughters, Olivia (7) and Calula Webster (6).

Nooky’s social enterprise, We Were Warriors, have produced the pylon projections to pay tribute to Barangaroo’s fierce spirit and express a message of unity and progress.

A procession of tall ships, commercial vessels and ferries will make their way around the harbour from 9:15pm, further lighting up the harbour with thousands of rigs.

Generative AI returns for the midnight fireworks

As part of the 12-minute midnight display, VANDAL’s projections will reflect Barangaroo as a woman of the water with immersive visuals of a shape-shifting being morphing from coral to kelp, fish to octopus and finally to water. To do this, a live dance performance was captured and fed into a custom-made generative AI program, building a narrative as 23,000 individual pyrotechnic shots fly into the air along with 13,000 aerial shells from a total of 264 firing locations across the bridge.

This will all flow to a soundtrack by award-winning composer Luna Pan that blends orchestral music with techno, house, reggae, hip hop, drum and bass and rock.

Fireworks will also shoot from the 4 iconic sails of the Sydney Opera House as well as 5 skycrapers in the city centre.

A packed New Year’s Eve concert

In addition to the fireworks, ABC will return to host its annual New Year’s Eve concert on the Northern Boardwalk of Sydney Opera House from 8:30pm. Dr Karl will be on hand to explain how fireworks work while Charlie Pickering, Zan Rowe and Concetta Caristo host a lineup led by Fanning Dempsey National Park, a supergroup featuring Powderfinger’s Bernard Fanning and Something For Kate’s Paul Dempsey, as well as Casey Donovan, Cyril, Nooky, Randy Houser, Becca Hatch, G-Flip and Korean-Australian rap crew 1300.

More places to see Sydney’s fireworks

There are now more firing locations on both sides of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, which means the city’s legendary NYE show will have a wider berth than ever before.

The wider spread of Sydney’s NYE fireworks display means more vantage points will start to open up. Already, prime viewing spots at Pirrama Park and Observatory Hill are preparing for an increase in visitors with food stalls and live DJs on the night. These viewing spots are also free to access to for the public, although with limited capacity so you’ll need to register beforehand.

Sydney’s New Year’s Eve Fireworks: Fast Facts

To truly realise the scope of the Sydney NYE fireworks display this year, consider the following

9 tonnes of fireworks will be set off on the night.
There will be 23,000 individual pyrotechnic shots with an additional 40,000 shooting ground-based effects and more than 13,000 aerial shells featuring 10 new custom designs.
There are now 17 firing locations in total, stretching for 7km across Sydney Harbour.
The highest firework will shoot 450 metres into the air.
Foti International Fireworks dedicated 4,500 hours to designing, staging and launching the New Year’s Eve fireworks each year.
The night will be directed by more than 1,000 accredited personnel and around 250 volunteers behind the scenes.
20 sky tracker light beams have been attached to the Sydney Harbour Bridge with fireworks shooting from more than 264 spots.
Fireworks will be launched from 80 new positions on the western side of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
26,500 lights will help the harbour glow along with 1,200 LED lights on the Luna Park ferris wheel.
More than 6 hours of bespoke visuals have been created for the night, all beamed onto the Sydney Harbour Bridge pylons.
More than 100 artists, musicians and other creatives have worked on the 9pm and midnight shows.
10 buildings, plus the Sydney Harbour Bridge, will light up pink after 10pm as a nod to the National Breast Cancer Foundation.
More than 1,000 boats are expected to watch the show from the water.
Crowds of up to 1 million are expected to watch the show from around the harbour.